This is a reprint of a 2022 column by John Job in which he interviewed Nikki Giovanni in a preview of that year's Big Ears Festival in Knoxville.

Pender was one of the many people on Virginia Tech’s campus mourning the loss of Nikki Giovanni. She died Monday at the age of 81, after battling cancer. Pender got to know Giovanni not just as a literary star, but as a person.

In Blacksburg, colleagues are remembering Nikki Giovanni's literary and academic achievements, but also the personal side of someone they say was a force of nature.

Giovanni was renowned for her literary career and will serve as an inspiration for generations of Fisk University students to come.